Laboratory managers blame PCR delays on mismanagement by Health Ministry

Mismanagement of the State laboratory system is the key reason for delays in PCR test results being issued, College of Medical Laboratory Science President and Laboratory Manager of the Health Ministry’s Outbreak Control Medical Laboratory Service Ravi Kumudesh yesterday stated.

According to Kumudesh, the Medical Research Institute alone has 6,000 PCR tests piled up at the moment, with results not being issued or results in the process of being issued. There are 1,500 pending reports from the Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital and 1,000 pending reports from the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA).

“However, we clearly state that this is not a problem with the capacity of the State laboratory system. It is clearly a weakness in the management of the Health Ministry,” Kumudesh said, accusing the Health Ministry of appointing a clueless team for the management of laboratories.

He went on to explain, that despite there being over 15 labs operating under the Health Ministry only for PCR tests, no proper discussions have been held on coordination and management.

“Please manage the State laboratory system and appoint persons who know how to manage the system. If this is done, the country’s PCR capacity will be 25,000. We have the ability to make it 25,000 within two weeks,” Kumudesh stressed.

He also shed light on a lack of facilities and equipment that contributes to these delays. “Despite any issues, in a laboratory, we complete a test in eight to ten hours,” he said, explaining that this is the fastest time within which they can conduct testing with the technology in use. If faster testing times are desired, better technology needs to be brought down.

Mismanagement plays a role in this regard as well, and Kumudesh stated that the BIA received a donation of a PCR machine that issues results in one and a half hours, but the machine is yet to be established properly in order to expand the country’s testing capacity.

The BIA is also facing shortages of reactors despite requesting supplies for three of the machines for three months.

“A reactor from China has been distributed across the island and there are issues with them. Who do we discuss these issues with? Who ordered these reactors? Do they have IVD validation?” Kumadesh queried, stressing that considerations should have been made on how suitable they are for use in local laboratories.

While highlighting these issues, Kumadesh however clarified that the blame was not on laboratory technicians or staff. “When we issue a report to the Epidemiology Unit, no one talks about the time taken by the Epidemiology Unit to hand over the report to the community health units. It takes longer for the report we issue to reach the public than it does for us to conduct testing.”

It also takes longer to submit specimens for testing than it does to conduct testing. Neither process is managed by the laboratories and further demonstrate mismanagement on the part of the Health Ministry.

Kumudesh went on to explain that this mismanagement is also seen with the vaccination process, where all employees of some labs are vaccinated at once instead of in groups. This has resulted in a situation where personnel from the same units are at home for two to three days due to side effects from the vaccination at the same time. In response to a question on new variants or strains of the virus reported in the island in the past few days, Kumudesh said: “The Health Ministry currently has no ability to make any statements on strains because the Health Ministry does not have any genetic sequencing analysis machines.”

He explained that despite proposals for donations made by the World Bank, Asia Development Bank and such organisations, no interest was shown by relevant parties. He went on to say: “Statements about new strains can only be made in relation to random testing done by the Sri Jayawardenepura University. The last identification of a strain was done four weeks ago by the Sri Jayawardenepura University and no other studies have been carried out anywhere in the island.”